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Community Service

I have always been involved in our community. It started at Sundays River when Pete and I moved here back in 2003. I started a local publication

which was a great way to meet and get to know a lot of folk in our village and I loved each edition I did every month for 5 years. Chances are I would still be at it had Pete and I not gone to Mauritius for 3 years. I am thrilled the gentleman who bought it from me is still doing a monthly issue.

I am involved in our Neighbourhood Watch programme which we started a year ago. Sadly the enthusiasm has worn off and we are left with just a hand full of community members who still do nightly patrols. There are a lot of apathetic people who find a lot of time to complain but not enough time to get involved.

I joined our local police forum as an ordinary member and I now have a fancy title of Chairperson. It has boosted my involvement from about 5% to a full 100%. I certainly know how to make work for myself.😀 Then again Mandy being Mandy I have to know how all the nuts and bolts work and love having things to tick off of a list. So satisfying.

I feel our SAPS are sometimes unfairly given a bad name and are not always properly thanked so on a visit to our local station a few weeks back I took along some custard cookies. Working closely with SAPS makes all the difference to understanding the challenges they face each day. Kudos to our local station for doing an outstanding job.

Do you have the same problem with the same hand full of willing people being involved in all things community?

I guess it’s always going to be that way – you have people that do … and people that don’t. It’s that way at work, church or anywhere. Unfortunately the people that contribute get tired of doing it all while the others just complain. Such a sad circle, around it goes. You should be very proud of your involvement, title and contributions. Good for you!

Mandy, I commend you for getting involved. You’re so right about people complaining but not being willing to give a little of their time to get involved and improve things. I think it’s a universal problem. I do understand that often people are working and feel they don’t have the time or energy to get involved but there are so many small things that they could help with & if you get enough people, it really does help make the load lighter.

Years ago when my daughter started school, I stopped working. I know that sounds backwards since (at least here) many mothers quit working when their children are babies & return to work once they start going to school. My feeling though was that I was lucky to have excellent daycare & when you put a baby in daycare, they stay put all day. Once they’re in school, they develop friendships & get involved in activities that require driving them all over the place. I just never liked the idea of having a stranger driving my daughter around. As a result I volunteered at the school, for after school programs & became a coach for TBall & then soccer.

I really enjoyed it & it was very helpful because I got to know the other kids & figured out which kids would be good friends and who would be trouble (as well as which parents I’d trust her with too). Sad to say though, people really took advantage & as a coach I was basically a babysitter for parents who just didn’t want to be bothered. I can’t tell you how many parents would be late picking up their kids or even FORGETTING – yes forgetting – to pick their kids up! One day we had a soccer game cancelled due to rain & the boy’s mother drove by & dropped her son off on my front lawn! Never called me, just dropped him off because she figured I was responsible for him during the time that the soccer game would have been played. She just dropped him off & took off for shopping (this was before cell phones). And of course he was one of the biggest troublemakers I had on the team so every minute with him was one calamity after another.

Thank you Diane! It does seem to be a universal problem, so sad.
Oh my goodness, I cannot believe some o the mothers you had to deal with, absolutely shocking!
I bet you handled it gracefully and with a smile on your face and in your heart.
Have a beautiful day.🙂 xo

Well I didn’t smack the mother who dropped her kid off in my yard without notice although she deserved it. There was a smile on my face when he left since he was one of the most difficult kids I ever had on a team (probably why the mom dropped him at people’s houses whenever she could!).

I love how involved you are Mandy – and I’m absolutely not surprised.🙂 You are wonderful and gracious. We too find that here. It’s that way in the schools too sadly. Forunately there are a handful of people that are willing.

Where we live in Spain nothing like this exists – but you can’t leave your house wearing a new pair of socks before someone notices and comments, so having nosey neighbours is probably a good thing for security! In Bexhill there are various community initiatives. Luckily we have quite a good presence of police and Community Suport Officers on the streets and it feels (to me at least) like a safe, friendly and low crime area. Well done to you on getting involved!

We have the same kind of thing here where everyone seems to know what everyone else is doing but that’s kind of where it stops. With us being in such a small village, I really would have thought there would have been more people willing to do just a little bit of something somewhere along the line. Have a wonderful day.🙂 xoxo

I think that is pretty common, the few that wade in all the way. I used to do that in too many things and learned to choose more wisely where to invest. Whatever we do to be involved in the community, at church, in our schools, I believe it matters. And if we can pause for a moment and deliver some cookies to say thank you like you did, even better. xo

The problem(s) you’ve described are universal, Mandy. Many will waste no time telling you what’s wrong with this or that but few, make that very few, will spend any time to help resolve the situation. The thing that all of us who have volunteered to help in some capacity have learned is that we receive so much more than what we contribute. It’s or little secret. Secrets aside, I know that your community is a better place because of your involvement.

Every year you always feature community service, and each time I read it Mandy, I always feel inspired to do more for my own community. And yes, there are always the same group of people that volunteer to do service but I wouldn’t trade my time with those like-minded people.